Boston, MA – March 10, 1964

August 4, 2016

Boston, Massachusetts – March 10, 1964

At 6:13 a.m., on March 10, 1964, Slick Airways Flight 12 departed New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on a cargo flight to Bradley Field in Connecticut, and then on to Boston’s Logan Airport. The aircraft was a Douglas C-54B-DC, (N384), with a crew of three aboard.

The flight arrived at Bradley without incident, and departed for Boston at 7:35 a.m.

According to the Civil Aeronautics Board Aircraft Accident Report, Boston weather at the time was scattered clouds and low overcast with surface visibility of 1 mile in moderate sleet, freezing rain, and fog.

At 8:01 a.m. the flight notified Boston Approach Control that they were encountering moderate airframe icing conditions.

At 8:21 a.m., as the aircraft was approaching Logan’s runway 4R, it crashed in a lumber yard in Boston’s Castle Island neighborhood approximately 7,000 feet from the airport. Upon impact a fire erupted setting the lumbar yard ablaze. No lumber yard workers were injured.

All three crewmen perished in the crash. They were identified as the pilot, Captain Irwin S. Zadwick, 39, of Lawton, OK., First Officer Salvatore J. Conilio, 35, of Somerville, MA., and Flight Officer Truman Sanner of Winthrop, MA.

The aircraft was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft in 1943 for the U.S. military with serial number 18379. It was purchased by Slick Airways in May of 1963.

Investigators determined the cause of the crash was due to; “loss of balancing forces on the horizontal surface of the aircraft’s empennage, due to ice accretion, causing the aircraft to pitch nose down at an altitude too low to effect recovery.”